


Hope and Chocolate

by AuroraCloud



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crossing Timelines, F/F, Femslash, Femslash Exchange 2017, Fix-It of Sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 07:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12293988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraCloud/pseuds/AuroraCloud
Summary: The Doctor goes back to find Missy during her time in the Vault. She has a plan. Also, there is a date.





	Hope and Chocolate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trobadora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this! Many thanks to triplesalto for a fantastic beta, who helped make this story so much better.

The Doctor raised her hand to knock on the Vault door. She stopped the move midway, staring at the hand, curious at the trembling. Anticipation was the rule whenever she was about to do anything dangerous, of course, but now there was even a definite sense of dread. Of course, crossing your own timeline was its own special kind of dangerous. Crossing your timeline when it involved Missy was bound to be… well, unfathomable.

Then again, maybe she had already done it. If she did it now, then in the past she would have done it. And in any case, one never did get around to anything by standing halfway to a knock in front of a big damn door, trembling and coming up with weird metaphors. So she knocked, firmly, three times.

”Who is it?” 

She felt shivers at hearing Missy’s voice for the first time in her new body. And it was this Missy, the one who wanted to change but did not yet know what was coming. Or did she? 

The voice continued. ”It had better not be Nardole again. I really don’t want any more of your tea. It’s bland.”

”It’s not Nardole,” the Doctor replied. In Gallifreyan.

There was a pause. Then Missy replied, ”Well, I’ll be damned. Come on in.”

The Doctor hoped it didn’t show, but she was feeling trepidation as she stepped across the threshold into Missy’s vault. Missy whirled around in her piano chair and came to a stop to face her. For a moment, she said nothing, just stared at the Doctor, wide-eyed. Then something like delight started to creep up on her face.

”Well, well, well. Looks good on you.”

There was a definite lusty note in her voice. The Doctor felt a curious burning under her skin.

”Which one are you?” Missy narrowed her eyes.

”The next one. To the one you know here, I mean.”

”What happened to the adorably grumpy Mr Grey Hair? I was just starting to get all cosy with him.”

Oh, so that’s what she thought? ”He’s still alive, don’t worry,” the Doctor replied nonchalantly. ”I happen later.”

Missy smiled, a slow, feral smile. ”Terrific! I have two of you.” She stood up and took three deliberate steps towards the Doctor. ”And you. Crossing over your own time line. Aren’t you getting naughty?”

The Doctor smiled back. ”And don’t you like it?”

Missy cocked her head to the side. ”Oh, you can’t even imagine.” She stepped close enough that the Doctor caught a whiff of her perfume. 

Missy was watching her intently. 

Missy was watching her intently. After a moment, she reached out a hand, then halted just before she would have touched the Doctor’s face. ”May I?”

The Doctor felt the air quiver between her skin and Missy’s hand. She nodded.

Missy touched her cheek, trailed a finger down her jawline. Leaning a little closer, she plunged her hand into the Doctor’s hair. ”Quite lovely,” she whispered. ”Aren’t you going to take me out for a date? Hmm?”

The Doctor considered, feeling Missy’s hand in her hair, lovely and pulling just a little too tight. She quirked a smile. “Might as well.”

*****

A date with Missy hadn’t necessarily been one of her smartest ideas, the Doctor admitted to herself. But she reasoned that if she did it, she had done it already, and it would be all right. Well, it wasn’t always all right, but so far her time sense hadn’t been alarmed. And in any case it was worth seeing Missy clap her hands in glee as they stepped out of the TARDIS together and she saw where the Doctor had brought her.

”Madame Cygna’s Delicious Teas and Cakes! Splendid! I always wanted to come here. I nearly did, but they chose such an inconvenient time to catch up with me.” She wrinkled her nose slightly, then turned to look at the Doctor past her shoulder. Her expression melted into a smile. ”My dear, you do have a splendid taste in choosing a date.”

The Doctor offered Missy her arm, which Missy accepted with great relish. 

Though quaintly named, the tea shop offered many other hot beverages from various points of the local star cluster, a great variety of things resembling cakes, and a splendid view of the Orion Nebula from the best tables (which the Doctor had taken care to reserve several weeks in advance, with the help of the TARDIS). The Doctor ordered herself green-lemon meringue cake, while Missy ordered several luxurious cakes and a large pot of tea. She insisted on making the Doctor taste her delicacies, and the Doctor discovered it was very pleasant to be fed rich dark chocolate cake directly from Missy’s fingers. They argued for a while about their preferred desserts, and Missy finished with:

”Oh, what’s the use? The next regeneration, you’ll end up liking fish finger cake or something.”

”Done that already. Do you think I’d be so boring as to repeat it? Besides, I don’t intend to abandon this body soon.” She managed to coax one of those smiles out of Missy that made her skin tingle deliciously.

”Just think,” Missy said, ” if we had never left the Citadel. We’d just be sitting there with the boring old brutes, thinking about the Time Vortex but never travelling it, and never seeing all those stars and planets and tasting these chocolates.”

”As I recall, you’ve been more interested in destroying planets than enjoying them,” the Doctor felt compelled to point out.

Missy pursed her lips. ”But chocolate goes so very well with destruction.” She leaned forward, laying her hand on the Doctor’s. The mere brush of their skins seemed to generate heat. ”Come on. You’re getting that look on your face that says you’re about to launch into some tirade about morality. Don’t. Dessert and morality don’t go well together. Besides, I was just about to tell you how gorgeous you are.”

Despite herself, the Doctor felt her body tingle with the idea that Missy found her attractive. She raised her eyebrows. ”Do go on.”

But instead of speaking, Missy leaned across the table and kissed her. The kiss was long and wet and tasted of rich chocolate.

It was interesting how, life after life, regeneration after regeneration, what should have registered as _dangerous_ and _must not do_ instead would register as _exhilarating_ and _really fun, must keep doing that_. Such as now. 

When Missy broke the kiss, the Doctor was left staring into Missy’s eyes, her breath heavy. Missy smiled. 

The Doctor grinned back at her. It was mad, it was dangerous, but this was what it felt like to be alive. 

She remembered the same heady exhilaration from another time, in another body, when she had first kissed Jack after he became immortal, the sense of wrongness adding to his allure. Well, _he_ had first kissed Jack. Same difference. She’d have to find Jack some time, see what he’d think of her new self. But this wasn’t the time to think of him. This was the time for those steely blue eyes boring right into hers, the air tingling like fire between the two of them, the last two Time Lords in the universe, their messy timelines twisting into a gorgeous dance around them as she swept Missy up in her arms again and kissed her, kissed her with the hunger of eons. And Missy stared at her like she was the most delightful chocolate cake in the world, and the Doctor thought she could grow used to that. 

She took Missy’s hand. ”There’s something I want to give you.”

”Oh, a gift! I’m loving this date more and more.” 

”But not here,” the Doctor said . ”I’ll take you someplace special.”

*****

Of course, that was where everything started to go wrong. The Doctor only meant to take a quick trip to the Vale of Athrx, to retrieve what she had located there, and then top off their date with a nice scenic moment by the Great Crystal Waterfalls with Missy. But who could be expected to keep up with the beliefs of all the peoples of all the planets at all times? It made it so much fun, there always being something to discover. Except sometimes it didn’t.

Well, it could have been fun in a way, though inconvenient. But Missy was Missy. When the locals decided that she fit the criteria for the goddess from another world they’d all been waiting for, Missy wasn’t going to resist, oh no. She also seemed to enjoy the fact that the Doctor was believed to be her maidservant, due to the colour of her hair. It might still have been tolerable — the place had religious oddities in profusion, and Missy might not have made such a difference to the actual history. But then someone had the idea of sacrifices, and Missy took them up eagerly. 

So once again it fell to the Doctor to perform lots of heroics — they were fun, sure — and set the world to rights. This included transferring Missy securely bound and gagged back to the TARDIS with a stolen hovercraft. An exceptionally good hovercraft, and she made one mean driver in this body. And at least she _had_ managed the trip to the ruins of the Museum of Lost Everything which had been her object all along, even if being a captive had made her quest slightly harder. But she was used to such predicaments, and she was more efficient against near-impossible odds, so it all worked out. 

When they were back in the safety of the TARDIS, and the Doctor removed Missy’s gag (but not her bindings), Missy merely smirked.

”Always knew you had it in you,” she said. ”Bondage? Suits you, my dear. A little forward for a date, but then, we have known each other for a _long_ time.”

The Doctor felt her body heat up in interesting ways. She considered. The idea had a certain appeal. Maybe later. ”That’s not what I’m here for.”

Missy raised her eyebrows. ”Then what?”

The Doctor puffed out some air and wondered if it was all worth it. But she knew it was.

She fixed Missy’s eyes sternly with her own. She was rewarded by a defiant smirk, but there was real warmth in those eyes, and that made her heat up from the inside. She bent to undo Missy’s bindings, noting how much she enjoyed the inevitable brushes of her skin against Missy’s skin.

She then took out a small glowing stone from her pocket. Not a stone, really. 

Missy’s eyes widened, and she leaned closer to look at it. ”What is that?”

This was the most infuriating part. Not explaining to Missy. She would so have liked to gloat upon about what she had managed to find, and impress on Missy how amazing she was. This regeneration seemed to enjoy an appreciative audience. But it was important not to tell Missy. It might change things if Missy knew in advance. Besides, the Doctor had no way of knowing if it would work. She only knew that this stone — well, not a stone, but legends debated its name and stone was as good as any — had a good chance at storing enough regenerative energy to make a difference… perhaps. It was the best hope either of them had.

”Not telling,” she said.

Missy narrowed her eyes. ”I’m sure I’ll find out.”

That was possible, of course. ”Have fun,” she said nonchalantly. ”Just don’t break it.”

”When and where did you find it?”

”Never mind that,” the Doctor said, knowing it would whet Missy’s curiosity to somewhat unbearable levels. ”The point is, you should take it.”

”Me?” Missy’s look became wary, calculating, confused.

”Keep it hidden,” she said. ”Don’t let me — the other me — see it.”

”Because you didn’t?” Missy asked. As if telling her not to meddle with space and time was ever effective. 

”Because I’m telling you not to,” the Doctor said.

Missy smiled. Then the smile faded and she looked into the Doctor’s eyes, unexpectedly serious. ”Why? What does it do?”

The Doctor only dropped the stone into Missy’s hand, and gently forced the slender fingers to wrap around it. She pressed a kiss on Missy’s mouth, lingered near, and said, ”You’ll want to have it in the case your past catches up with you some time.”

She felt the movement as Missy tucked the stone away, into some hidden pocket or purse within the folds of her dress. Then she felt Missy’s arms wrap around her waist, uncharacteristically clumsy and tight. They stayed close to one another, breathing, feeling. Not a word passed, but the Doctor felt an intimate brush of Missy’s mind against her own, communicating something Missy had not communicated in a long time. She noticed her sight blur.

They kissed. It was slow, and unexpectedly tender. The Doctor didn’t want to pull away, and for a long time she didn’t have to.

When she did draw back, she stayed close enough so she didn’t have to look into Missy’s eyes. ”I have to take you back now.”

”Back into the vault? For a thousand years? Oh, of course you have to.”

”I have to,” she repeated. ”But please. Remember.”

What she pulled away, she saw that Missy’s eyes had gone strangely moist.

It wasn’t easy to leave her behind, but it was easier than the alternative. 

Back in her TARDIS, the Doctor paused. She had no way of telling what would happen. Maybe nothing would. Maybe she had enabled another catastrophe. But she had to try. That was one thing that had never changed, and _would_ never change, no matter how long she might live. She always had to try, always had to seek to find out. And she always had to hope.

And what a thrilling hope she now had.

She sighed, went to the TARDIS controls, and pulled a lever. Then she stopped, considered. Oh, what the hell.

Missy was at the piano again when the Doctor opened the door. She looked unsurprised to see her. ”Well? Forget your keys?”

”I do have to leave you here.”

”I know. You have this weird preoccupation with not blowing up timelines.” 

”But before I do…” The Doctor stepped inside the Vault and let Missy see her grin. ”We could have a little fun.”

Missy spun languidly on her chair, faced the Doctor, and smiled. ”I knew you would say that.”

The Doctor locked the door behind her, her eyes never leaving Missy’s. ”Did you? Then predict what I’m going to do next.”

She had a feeling she was going to enjoy this regeneration.


End file.
